Chris Christie's reelection romp

FREEHOLD, N.J. – New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s romp to reelection began with a storm.

For all the focus on his superior ads, his crossover support from unions, and the weakness of his Democratic rival, Christie’s path to victory – one that his supporters would love to see shatter the record margin for a New Jersey Republican in the historically blue state and propel an all-but-assumed bid for president – started on Oct. 29, 2012. That was the day that Hurricane Sandy touched down on the Jersey Shore.

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Christie: National reach 'inevitable'

His favorability numbers soared above 70 percent. He was on TV touring the wreckage with Barack Obama, sharing an embrace with the on-the-verge-of-reelection president that would come back to haunt Christie with conservatives, but which played well with voters in his own state.

Everything flowed from there. Democrats anticipated his approval rating would come back to earth, and while the numbers deflated, he always had a commanding lead over Barbara Buono, a Democratic state senator who was able to run just two ads against Christie’s 16 spots, whose fundraising was miniscule, and who attracted no national Democratic stars to her side.

Sandy was threaded throughout Christie’s final day on the campaign trail Monday, as he took a pre-Election Day tour of the state with New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez by his side. Martinez, a fellow blue-state governor and former prosecutor like Christie, is a top Hispanic figure in the GOP.

Her presence – she was one of only two Republican surrogates Christie said he’d asked to come campaign with him; the other was former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – also contrasted with the string of more conservative GOPers who streamed into Virginia to campaign for hard-right gubernatorial nominee Ken Cuccinelli.

Heading into Tuesday, a Quinnipiac University poll showed Christie getting just over 60 percent of the vote, including a third of the Democrats polled. He’s hoping to rack up strong-for-a-Republican margins among black and Hispanic voters to portray himself as a different type of GOPer than his party’s flame-throwers, one who can broaden the party’s core base of voters in order to take back the White House.

“I know we still have work to do,” Christie told the crowd at Monmouth County Republican Headquarters here. “[But] we’ve come a long way.”

He had, he said, “a mission” that was “thrust upon me” last October. He heaped praise on a local Republican congressman who was critical of his colleagues in the House during the battle for post-Sandy recovery funds.

And he told a crowd packed into a small pastry shop in Hillside that his expected victory will show the rest of the nation that he and his state are a model of governance.

“People expect government to work for them … and you can compromise without compromising your principles,” he told POLITICO. “It’s not a dirty word. That’s what we’ve proven over four years in New Jersey. … I know what’s gone on here in New Jersey and what’s happening here is not the result of the last six months. It’s the result of the last four years.”

Christie signed campaign posters calling him a strong leader, posed for repeated pictures and described his wife Mary Pat as the “real star.”

One voter, who drove an antique car with her father and parked it outside the pastry shop, carried around a sign for the assembled media: “Here I am with the future president of the United States.”

“All I know is that I love his charisma and I love his down-to-earthness,” said the voter, Peggy Sue Singe, 52, of Linden, who added that she doesn’t care if Christie gives up his day job to become president.

As it happens, the past six months have been exceptional for Christie. Armed with Obama’s embrace, and with a second visit by the president to the area earlier this year, Christie was able to make an aggressive push for Democratic and union support.

His first labor endorsement was in December, and his first Democratic endorsement was in January.

That helped dry up Buono’s efforts to fundraise against a governor who was able to cut deals with Democratic power brokers in the state. And because of Obama’s glowing reviews of Christie’s post-hurricane performance, Buono struggled mightily.

What’s more, Christie, to the strong criticism of Democrats, was able to tout his own leadership in taxpayer-funded ads fueled by post-Sandy federal funds. But instead of a national outcry over a misuse of money, Buono’s criticism met with a collective shrug.

Despite hiring some of Obama’s own campaign consultants, the only endorsement the president made in New Jersey was of now-Sen. Cory Booker, his friend and longtime ally.

Without money, Buono could barely go up on the air, and the Democratic Governors Association spent virtually no money on her behalf. Only EMILY’s List, which recruits female candidates, was strongly behind Buono.

Her approach to messaging was criticized by some in New Jersey – instead of focusing directly on parts of Christie’s record, she seized on his ambitions for higher office.

Sources familiar with Buono’s strategy insisted there was only a small handful of imperfect options available to her, and her team went in that direction because it was a way to highlight Christie’s own harder-right record on abortion, gay marriage and what one source called his “trickle-down” approach to economics.